The personal blog of Reyn Bowman, a Durham NC resident, 40-year veteran of community-destination marketing and still an explorer in community sense-of-place. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.

Senator Simpson speaks with a refreshing no-non-sense clarity reminiscent of folks in my home state of Idaho. He nails one of the problems infecting the entire country with the quote I used for the title of this blog.

Mr. Simpson’s words made me very nostalgic for a time when we had more reason and patience and forgiveness among our Nation’s most prominent “role models.” But he also was dead on when he pointed out that what we see in Congress is reflective of what we see everywhere now, not just on Fox News.

His comments also gave me reason to be even more concerned about what columnist David Brooks wrote in the New York Times. Though a decade younger, Mr. Brooks started out liberal and became conservative at about the same age I changed going in the opposite direction.

He wrote, “Many people live in information cocoons in which they talk only to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect…They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality.”

Hal Crowther writing in the Independent last week summed it up “…it’s critical information they’ll never receive. Thanks to the fragmentation and polarization of of the media, Americans can now avoid any facts or opinions that might surprise or displease them.”